Westward Ho! 

The song “Woyaya” talks of a spiritual journey. I am going to talk about physical travels – but physical travels are hollow unless we allow our spiritual journey free rein as well. Forty-five years ago, I decided to visit all fifty states. I began this year with three states unvisited – North Dakota, Montana and Alaska – and a plan to see all three. Jan had a plan of her own, to debunk a myth I periodically propagated about her home state of Iowa: namely, that Iowa was flat and filled with corn.

There are three schools of thought about planning a road trip: (1) Throw some stuff in the car, gas in the tank and leave; (2) plan every detail because you may not be back to that part of the country again and if you don’t plan you will surely miss something great; (3) have a few don’t miss spots, but otherwise wing it.

We like version three. My daughter gave me a book for Christmas titled, Off the Beaten Path, which provided grist for possible places to visit. Jan had not been back to Iowa since her parents died in 1989 and she wanted to show me her roots so on day one we travelled from our winter home in Kentucky to Iowa and stopped at the Geode State Park near Mt. Pleasant, IA. We had packed the car with the essentials we needed for the trip and with stuff we needed to open up our UP camp, so it was full. We decided we would tent-camp on nights with projected good weather and otherwise use hotels. We have gotten past the point of proving how tough we are – I should probably rephrase that – I have gotten past proving how tough and pure I can be when talking about things like camping.

The park was crowded, but we found a decent site and proceeded to set up the tent – until I couldn’t find the tent poles. I had assumed when I packed everything away from the last time that I had kept everything together. After some panicked moments again searching the car to no avail, I remembered that months ago I had stuck them into the sleeping bag sack because there was more room. Lesson one – just because you have the bag, doesn’t mean you have all the contents (parallel – just because I have a head, doesn’t necessarily mean my brain is also functioning.)

The next morning, which was a Sunday, we headed to Newton, Iowa by way of the little towns Jan’s parents grew up in. We stopped at Eldon, peered into the closed museum dedicated to the Grant Wood painting “American Gothic,” where I discovered the woman was the farmer’s daughter, not his wife. We took an obligatory picture of the house, but refrained from posing on the porch ourselves – the characterization might be getting a little too close for comfort as we age.

Then we drove to Agency where Jan’s grandparents had a farmstead – nothing remained, even the old barn had been torn down – and stopped in at the cemetery where Jan’s parents are interred. We followed back roads (which did have some ups and downs that could be called hills) into Newtown and Jan guided me on a tour of the town where much had changed, but little had changed. In particular, she wanted to show me the Maytag Park near her house where she had spent many a summer’s day. We had to talk our way in because it was graduation Sunday and they were using an outside amphitheater later in the day. Being old has some advantages since the cops could have been our kids and took pity on us.

The park had shrunk – not physically – but emotionally. Jan found everything still there, but the area was much smaller than she remembered. I recall this same phenomenon when I visited the first home I can remember living in – a huge (I thought) three-story home on a double lot. Well heck if the second lot hadn’t been sold off in the intervening years and although the house did have three stories; it had become narrow – and its green wood siding had morphed into white aluminum. A friend from Cincinnati told me about visiting the Houghton house he lived in when he was pre-school. He visited fifty plus years later and found the house, much as he remembered it, surrounded by the same wrought-iron fence he had remembered, except the fence only came up to his waist – and he had remembered it as a towering fence.

Funny how our perspective changes as we gain new experiences. Sometimes we are physically larger and a fence around our house shrinks or a park is no longer infinite in size. Sometimes we view things from afar, as the astronauts did from their space flights and declared, “It is one.” Sometimes our daily lives force changes upon us. It takes us 30-40 minutes to drive to our post office to get mail. Somehow the fact that we used to get mail delivery twice-a-day during the Christmas card season has lost its importance as a way of life.

For weeks before the trip, Jan had been talking about taking me to the Maid-Rite in the center of Newton – famous for their loose meat hamburger sandwiches and a stop every politician who visits Newton must make. (The Hillary Clinton did she or didn’t she tip brouhaha was there). We arrived at lunchtime, parked near the town square and found it closed. It’s always closed on Sunday – we hadn’t checked. Note to self: if something is really important, checking the details is a good thing.

Instead, we went into the Midtown Café, a spot Jan’s father had used for decades to meet with a group of business colleagues for coffee and conversation. It was hopping and served up traditional Midwestern fare – i.e. a vegetarian would have starved and the heart surgeons have nothing to fear about a loss of future business. This would not be the last time that a forced change in plans led to a delightful happenstance.

From Newton we zipped over to Des Moines – saw the river close to flood stage and wandered around Drake University where Jan got her degree and then headed west where even I had to agree that Jan and Dar Williams in her song Iowa (Traveling III) had it right, there are hills in Iowa – darn nice ones, too.

The next day we covered Nebraska, saw Fort Hartsuff, a late-1870s prairie fort, got stopped by a Nebraska state cop for exceeding the speed limit on a backcountry road – and let off when he found out we were exploring the state by avoiding the Interstate system. Jan also expected Nebraska to be flat with corn (not my state – their state is the boring one) and we both were shocked by the topography of northwestern Nebraska – the “Sand Hills” which were treeless, stark, forbidding.

One thing Jan and I have known for quite some time is that when I drive and she navigates we have one driver and a half a navigator. Jan quotes her mother as saying she had a strong sense of direction, it just wasn’t very reliable. Jan got that gene without offsets from her father.

When Jan drives, we have one and a half drivers and one navigator. After 13 years of driving together, we knew that we generally got to places with a little less drama if Jan drove and I navigated and occasionally told her how to drive (a skill set I am trying to lose). I have to admit, however, over the years we have seen some places we never would have discovered if Jan hadn’t been navigating.

It’s funny how we hold onto habits and behaviors we know are inefficient. There is a comfort in doing things the same way we always have. Of course some wag once said, the definition of crazy was doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting a different result.

One place I wanted to visit was the Little Bighorn Battle site – home to Custer’s Last Stand. I had read accounts of the battle and the campaign to which it belonged. Walking the topography of a historic place helps me understand better what transpired there and why. For those who don’t know Custer’s history, here’s a snapshot. Rushed through West Point a year early, his class graduated in 1861 (he was at the bottom of his class). In the civil war, he quickly rose from 2^nd lieutenant to one of the youngest Brigadier Generals (at age 23 based on high-risk personal bravery and an ability to lead men) and ultimately Major General of Volunteers. After the war, he assumed a position in the regular army as a Lt. Colonel in charge of the 7^th Calvary.

Before Custer got to his “Last Stand”, he made a number of decisions. He refused reinforcements, believing his men could take care of any number of Indians; he left his Gatling guns (precursors to machine guns) aboard ship, because they would slow him down; and he dismissed his scouts’ reports about the size of the Indian village he was about to attack. His biggest fear when he started his attack on the Indians that day was they would break camp and split up.

His troops were tired from a forced march the previous day and night, but because of Custer’s fear of the Indians leaving, he began the attack in the late afternoon. When it was all over, Custer had lost 268 men consisting of 16 officers, 242 enlisted men and 10 civilians and Indian scouts.

Custer was the media darling of the day – a position he carefully cultivated – he dressed as a dandy to gain attention. After his death, Mrs. Custer became the great force in making sure Custer’s memory was polished into the tragic military officer extraordinaire who gave his life for his country.

Custer was honored by being interred at West Point. Counties in six states are named for Custer (actually one of the six is named after the Custer Mine, which was previously named after the general.) Numerous towns bear his name. The burial grounds at Little Bighorn are the Custer National Cemetery – although I guess that is aptly named. The Army, who names Forts after dead soldiers, honored Custer with a Fort. A national forest bears his name, as does the oldest observatory on Long Island. If he had only lived, we would probably have elected him president!

Then, as now, blame quickly shifted to subordinates. General Nelson A. Miles, praised Custer’s battlefield decisions saying, “The more I study the moves here (on the Little Bighorn), the more I admire Custer.” Rumors spread that subordinate commanders were to blame. Major Reno requested and was granted a court-martial to address that particular question and in 1879 was found innocent.

We in the United States seem to have a need to create heroes out of disasters, even if we think the battles unwise. Twenty-four medals of honor were granted for heroism during the Battle of Little Bighorn (none to an Indian scout.) Today, we shine the light of our own prejudices and often hold up Custer as the embodiment of failed Indian policies of the era. However, Custer disagreed with the army head, General Phil Sheridan (of “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” fame), about Indian treatment. Custer testified against the treatment of Indians on reservations and almost lost his job because of it. He maintained that if he were an Indian he would fight to the death alongside of those who left the reservation rather than be cooped up on a reservation. I wonder if people at the time had generally known that side of George Armstrong Custer if they would have left him buried with his men on the Dakota hills where he fell.

Paul Wright says any message is good if it includes reference to Thomas Jefferson. In our travels though Montana and the Dakotas we saw lots of tourist signs for the Lewis and Clark expedition sent out by Jefferson’s orders. We avoided those places like the plague, but mention of them does allow me to toss in Jefferson and get a positive review from Paul.

Instead, we made our way to the International Peace Garden perched half on US soil in North Dakota and half on Canadian soil in Manitoba.

Over 2,000 acres in extent, it commemorates the longest peaceful border in the world. Some 50,000 people were present at its dedication in 1932, in the middle of the Great Depression – hard to imagine. A stone cairn carries a plaque with these words:

TO GOD IN HIS GLORY,

we two nations

dedicate this garden

and pledge ourselves

as long as men

shall live, we will

not take up arms

against each other.

This is a botanical garden, not a natural one and the US side was constructed largely by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Since very little is blooming in Northern Dakota/Southern Manitoba the first week in June, very few people shared the spot with us that day. We had a lovely picnic lunch overlooking fields and a man-made lake.

The centerpiece of the garden is the Peace Tower – an open structure with pillars on each side of the US/Canadian border, the 49^th parallel – 37 meters tall. Very impressive, but I was more captivated by two other structures.

The Peace Garden contains a 9/11 memorial. The sculpture is composed of ten beams from the World Trade Center. I was struck by the incongruity of its placement on the international border between the US and Canada nearly 1,500 miles from the tragedy. Is this the same instinct to grab immortality by any means possible that sees us naming this, that and the other thing after George Armstrong Custer? Why no sculpture commemorating the Hutu or Tutsi villages destroyed in their conflict? Or to Tokyo, which suffered in excess of 100,000 civilians killed due to US firebombing in World War II. Conservative estimates indicate over 88,000 died in one night’s raid.

Don’t get me wrong here. The hijackings and murders were heinous acts. The company I worked for lost 295 employees that day. But why do we dwell on some acts at the exclusion of others? Why in 2,000 acres devoted to peace do we have this solitary example of war’s inhumanity?

Perhaps it is my failing that I don’t understand this need to commemorate a disaster. Of those who died on 9/11 over 400 were uniformed officers who paid a far higher price for doing their duty than will ever be asked of most of us in doing our duties – the veterans among us are possible exceptions. No matter how misguided the war, I can understand our expressing appreciation to those who have given their lives to fight it. I spent an afternoon one time reading each name carved into the black stone of the Vietnam War memorial. But this commemorating the 9/11 event – and somehow deciding that because of it we are proud to be Americans, I do not understand.

At the beginning of each service I prepare I state that I am proud to be a member of the Marquette Unitarian Universalist Congregation. It is a choice I have made. I am darned lucky to have been born in a country at the zenith of its economic power, but I am not proud to be an American. I was born here; I have just as much reason to be proud to be right-handed as being American. When the Israelites were scared during their exodus from Egypt, they erected false idols. I wonder: Are we doing the same?

The second interesting place within the International Peace Garden is the Peace Chapel, which straddles the border and in and of itself is not a very impressive building. Once inside, however, the outside world is silenced and the rounded walls focus your attention to your individual reaction to the writings carved on the marble walls. While the original inspiration for the Peace Garden related to peace between the US and Canada, the chapel broadened its meaning. I had entered the chapel, intending only a quick peak, after all we came to the park to be out-of-doors – we stayed and read and reflected on each saying. Each could be the basis for a Sunday message. Even some pedantic or commonplace sayings seemed to me as more to the point than yet one more out-of-the-way 9/11 memorial. We dragged ourselves out of the room.

I know many of you hope to leave our gatherings more centered than when you walked in the doors, and sometimes my messages are more unsettling than centering. For you, this final offering. Due south of the International Peace Gardens is Rugby, North Dakota, which shocked me into rethinking my map of North American. About 600 hundred miles west of here, Rugby contains the central geographic point of our continent. Westward Ho!

James Montgomery Jackson
September 28, 2008